ˈdē-lȯg daily explorations logged outside gray matter

USB Serial

Serial port access can be very useful during embedded systems development.

I do most of my development on Mac OS X, or Ubuntu and Windows virtual machines. I use a USB to serial cable/breakout to connect a serial port to the Mac, which is then redirected by Parallels Desktop to the guest OS.

If you have a cable that uses the Prolific USB Serial chipset, getting up and running is well documented by Plugable. The driver they provide works for me. Most other cables use a chipset from FTDI, but Mac OS X already provides a driver for that.

To interact with a terminal on the embedded system you need some kind of terminal emulator.